more on this theme | more from this text
Full Idea
Bentham has not made up his mind whether he thinks that 'right' means 'productive of the general happiness', or that being productive of the general happiness is what makes acts right (and he would have thought the difference unimportant).
Gist of Idea
Is 'productive of happiness' the definition of 'right', or the cause of it?
Source
comment on Jeremy Bentham (Intro to Principles of Morals and Legislation [1789]) by W. David Ross - The Right and the Good §I
Book Ref
Ross,W.David: 'The Right and the Good' [OUP 1930], p.8
A Reaction
The issue is whether rightness exists as a concept separate from happiness. I take it Bentham would vote for the first reading, as he has no interest in what is right, apart from increasing happiness.
| 20977 | Natural rights are nonsense, and unspecified natural rights is nonsense on stilts [Bentham] |
| 21003 | Only laws can produce real rights; rights from 'law of nature' are imaginary [Bentham] |
| 5271 | Prejudice apart, push-pin has equal value with music and poetry [Bentham] |
| 5901 | Is 'productive of happiness' the definition of 'right', or the cause of it? [Ross on Bentham] |
| 5934 | Of Bentham's 'dimensions' of pleasure, only intensity and duration matter [Ross on Bentham] |
| 3554 | Bentham thinks happiness is feeling good, but why use morality to achieve that? [Annas on Bentham] |
| 3777 | Pleasure and pain control all human desires and duties [Bentham] |
| 3778 | The community's interest is a sum of individual interests [Bentham] |
| 3779 | Unnatural, when it means anything, means infrequent [Bentham] |
| 3780 | We must judge a thing morally to know if it conforms to God's will [Bentham] |
| 3781 | The value of pleasures and pains is their force [Bentham] |
| 20280 | Large mature animals are more rational than babies. But all that really matters is - can they suffer? [Bentham] |